


Sensory Input

by Caffeinated_Owlbear



Series: Deleted Scenes from Lost and Found [1]
Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: (it all depends if you read this separately from the main fic), AI Handsome Jack - Freeform, Anal Sex, Atlas CEO Rhys, Deleted Scenes from Lost and Found, Dom/sub Undertones, Fingerfucking, Hand Jobs, Loose Interpretation of Sensory Processing by AI, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn With Plot, Post TftBl, Virtual Reality, brief post-fuck fluff, switching power dynamics, that both parties will deny was a thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:40:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26572342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffeinated_Owlbear/pseuds/Caffeinated_Owlbear
Summary: In which Rhys and AI Jack get to test exactly how realistic Atlas's virtual reality simulator is.Taking things one at a time seems to be working. For now. The experience is just that little bit less overwhelming, to the degree where registering multiple sensations at once becomes an option. Jack feels his fingers tightening the hold on the back of Rhys’s head, while his other hand pushes the increasingly soaked shirt off his shoulder, and he breaks away from Rhys’s mouth to trail kisses and bites along his jaw, his neck, his throat. Rhys cranes his head backwards, hair fully wet and falling over his face now, trickles of water running down his jaw and neck, getting caught between Rhys’s skin and Jack’s lips.
Relationships: Handsome Jack/Rhys (Borderlands)
Series: Deleted Scenes from Lost and Found [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1932703
Comments: 4
Kudos: 59





	Sensory Input

**Author's Note:**

> This first piece in the Deleted Scenes series was written to celebrate 50 subscribers to Lost and Found. Thank you to everyone who's been reading, commenting and subscribing! And THANK YOU to [cupcakesandAIs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupcakesandAIs) for essentially co-authoring this piece with me, and for the hands on the mirror thing in particular.
> 
> Enjoy the porn.
> 
>  **Necessary context:**  
>  1\. If you've been reading Lost and Found: this is an alternative ending to [Chapter 5](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25522786/chapters/62745607) (featuring Rhys's first visit to the virtual reality, and some content carried over from the beginning of Chapter 6)  
> 2\. If you're not familiar with Lost and Found:  
> \- Rhys brought AI Jack back because he needs his help with Atlas, or so Rhys tells himself  
> \- Jack currently exists in a virtual reality, which offers a credible simulation of corporeality  
> \- so far, Rhys and Jack have been getting along by compartmentalizing the absolute hell of their relationship and religiously avoiding the whole subject of betrayals, imprisonments and crashed space stations  
> \- this is technically still day 1 of Jack being back (what can say, everyone is thirsty)

Jack’s been inside the virtual reality for a few hours now, and the fact that he still can’t manipulate the simulated universe as he sees fit is a fucking travesty.

Yeah, sure, Rhys has given him editing rights. Yeah, sure, he can change whatever he wants (within reason) through the coding console. But that’s _lame_ . Plus, the screen’s a human interface device, and Jack’s not human. He’s an AI inside a program, which means he shouldn’t need a programming crutch like _interface_ . He _should_ be able to change the place with a wave of his freaking _hand_. 

So far, frustratingly, the software has resisted his efforts to manipulate it directly. _What_ is he missing, thinks Jack as he lets the simulated shower wash over him. It’s gotta be something obvious.

A ping from the software delivers him another message from Rhys: apparently, he will be dropping by in five minutes or so. Finally. It’s gotta be, what, at least twelve hours since the kid pulled Jack out of the void inside the ECHO eye, but their interaction so far has been limited to voice chat and texting. Jack would be lying if he said he wasn’t curious about how their first face-to-face meeting is gonna go.

Jack twists his wrist above his head to shut off the shower, steps outside, pulls up the coding screen and thinks commands into it to summon himself some dry clothes (he’d originally gotten into the shower with his clothes on; existing as a hologram for a while will make you forget clothes aren’t literally a part of you). He’s working on the details on his sneakers when something in the corner of his eye draws his attention.

There’s something missing from the shower cubicle. The _shower_. As in, the taps, the pipes, the shower head: all gone, simply vanished. Jack rewinds the past few minutes in his head. What could he have done to make the shower disappear? Literally, the only things he’s done were, in reverse order: code in new clothes, disintegrate old wet clothes, step out of the shower, shut off the water–

Hang on. Hang the frick on.

Jack steps into the shower cubicle again, raises a hand, rotates his wrist, counter-clockwise at first, then clockwise… and actually jumps and curses as water starts pouring on his head again. Then he looks up. The shower head’s back in place, as is the rest of the shower.

Keeping his eyes on the shower pipes, Jack twists his wrist again, counter-clockwise. The pipes vanish, the water’s gone. Clockwise. The pipes are back, the water’s back.

Counter-clockwise. Boom, no shower. Clockwise. Boom, shower’s back.

Jack stares up through the stream of water and feels his face break into a giant grin. Of course. Of fucking course.

Gestures. Freaking _gestures,_ that’s what he’s been missing. This place is so much more _physical_ , it simulates corporeality, it gives _feedback_ – it only makes sense that it’s not enough he only _thinks_ at the program to interface with it directly.

Jack laughs. All this time, he’s been so close to figuring it out. Every time he thought about manipulating this space with a wave of his hand. He just didn’t actually think to wave his goddamn hand.

Jack flexes his fingers. Cracks his knuckles. Places a palm on the wall either side of him.

Okay. Let’s do this.

He closes his eyes. Feels the smooth plastic of the cubicle under his palms and the ribbed plastic floor beneath the soles of his feet, concentrates on every rivulet of water running down his face. Then Jack takes a deep breath, and as his ribcage expands, he zeroes in on the feeling, searches the physical sensation for a mental fingerhold, and when it feels like he’s got a hook into it, he lets his mind surge down that link, pouring into the feeling and taking its shape, the shape of breath, of pressure, of controlled expansion, of expansion that’s controlled right up till it’s not, and–

_whoomph_

(It’s not a sound. There’s no sound, just a feeling in Jack’s chest, something that would be found at the exact halfway point between mid-range orgasm and softcore electrocution. But if he had to put it into words, ‘whoomph’ wouldn’t be a million miles off.)

Jack opens his eyes. He’s standing on a white plane that doubles for floor level in this place. Suspended in the air all around him are pieces of the simulated apartment. Nothing actually destroyed. Just disassembled.

“Yeah, baby!” Jack punches the air. He claps his hands back together. The wall panels and furniture rush back towards him at speed.

“NOW we’re talking! THIS is the shit– oh shit.” That’s maybe too much speed. Jack throws his hands up again. The onslaught of the deconstructed apartment halts in mid-air.

Whew! Jack pushes the floating pieces of reality outwards once more, pulls them back in, launches them in orbits, some coordinated, some not so much. He laughs again, an exhilarated deity in the midst of a weirdly domestic-flavored cosmos.

When he looks away from the constellation of light fixtures somewhere above, he sees Rhys.

“Hey, you made it!”

The kid just stands there, staring. At Jack. At the disassembled space around them. But mostly at Jack.

Oh yeah. He still doesn’t have any clothes on.

Jack grins at Rhys. “Hang on, lemme just put the universe back together. Mind your head.”

He lowers his hands to face level, then brings them together slowly, palms facing each other, until his fingertips touch. Around him, the disassembled apartment starts coming back together, also slowly. Floor tiles drifting closer to each other. Lights and vents arranging themselves in ceiling tiles. Furniture forming clusters based on theme and location. Jack couldn’t stop grinning even if he wanted to. The controlled reassembly looks so good it’s like he freaking _practiced_ it. Then again, he’s always performed better with an audience.

Jack shoots Rhys a winning grin while pieces of the apartment are gradually taking shape above and around them. Rhys meets his gaze head-on. He’s not smiling. Jaw squared, he strides forward, navigating through the slowly reconstituting apartment debris. He brushes past a small floating console with buttons of unknown purpose, leans aside to avoid the spray from the shower head that's still drifting through space somewhere above them, and then he's standing right in front of Jack.

"Hey there, cupca–"

Rhys's fist crashes into the side of Jack's face before he can finish the sentence. The right side, Jack can just about register, which means the punch is powered by flesh, not metal, which means Jack _shouldn't_ feel like he's just lost a game of chicken to a freight train, but oh, he does. The ringing in his ears is deafening; his vision falters; he could swear his entire physical projection flickers in and out of existence for a split second, as if the blow has actually, momentarily, shaken his code out of alignment. Next to that, the pain in his jaw is barely a footnote.

Jack staggers backwards as the whole world tilts around him, one hand flailing to help him keep his balance, the other grasping blindly for something to hold on to. His fingers grab onto Rhys’s front, but it’s too little, too late: he’s already lost his footing. For half a second, it feels like Rhys’s shirt is about to give and leave Jack to fall with nothing but a handful of fabric, but the simulated cloth holds, and they crash down together.

The impact hits Jack with more g’s than being moonshot from Helios into the surface on Pandora; a weight pins him down, crushing his chest like a hydraulic press. He fights to take a breath before he remembers he doesn’t need any. Somehow, it’s that realization that makes breathing possible again, and his senses recalibrate. He hasn’t been moonshot from orbit: he just fell to the floor from his own height. There isn’t a crushing weight pressing him down: it’s just Rhys, who’s landed on top of him.

Jack opens his eyes, lifts himself up on an elbow, and finds himself face to face with Rhys. In the corner of his eye, he registers the impromptu solar system of the disintegrated apartment falling into chaos, orbits decaying, objects freewheeling through the simulated space any old how. Jack’s eyes gravitate to a metal pipe that’s careening through the air, on a clear collision course with the side of Rhys’s head. 

Rhys sees him looking, and follows his gaze. For the longest moment, the two of them stare, mesmerized, at the metal projectile. When the pipe is less than two feet away from Rhys’s face, Jack sends it hurtling aside with a flick of his wrist. Both of them watch the object’s new trajectory until it hits the simulated floor with a loud metallic clatter. 

Jack turns to face Rhys again and finds himself the sole focus of a wide-eyed stare: one eye a warm brown, the other, an ECHO eye that’s no longer blue, but a pale amber, no, molten gold, no–

He doesn’t get to finish the thought because Rhys’s eyes are suddenly too close to focus on, and Rhys’s mouth is crushed against Jack’s, _and what the fuck is even happening right now_ , and Jack can feel Rhys’s breath on his skin, and only then does he remember to breathe, too, even though he doesn’t need to, _and_ _what the fuck is happening right now_ , and Rhys’s tongue slips past Jack’s lips, and one of Rhys’s hands is in Jack’s wet hair while the other grabs the back of his neck, as if to keep him in place, as if Jack could gather himself enough to try and move away even if he wanted to. Even if he wanted to move away from… _okay, but seriously, WHAT is happening right now?.._

(It’s a kiss. He’s kissing you. That’s what’s happening right now. You remember kissing, right?)

(Yes. And no. Jack remembers kissing people. Jack remembers getting kissed. But Jack can’t bring to mind any single kiss that felt like a shot of heroin cut with equal parts caffeine and adrenaline, and injected directly into his brain.)

Jack scrambles what processing power he can to recalibrate, recalibrate, split this sensory avalanche into components, integrate them into his framework of the world as individual sensations: new, and welcome, and yes, intense, but not overwhelming to and beyond the point of pure overload. It’s easier said than done. How do you freaking navigate interactions with someone else’s semi-corporeal body when you’ve barely gotten the hang of having one of your own? Up until half an hour ago, Jack’s only just learned to process such basic semi-corporeal experiences as bruises from furniture and water jets from the shower. Now he’s got to contend with the touch of skin on skin, and fabric on skin, and metal on skin, and hands in hair, and the weight of another body on his, and, and, and– 

(Stop listing, Jack. Just take it one thing at a time.)

Okay. _Okay._

Skin on skin. Jack lifts one hand to hold the side of Rhys’s face, tilts it to the side to lock their mouths tighter together. Rhys’s soft moan vibrates against his lips.

Fabric on skin. Jack uses his other hand to pull at the open collar of Rhys’s black shirt, fingers looking for buttons to open.

Metal on skin. Even though Jack’s not leaning up on his elbow anymore, he finds he’s not falling back down: Rhys’s cybernetic arm at the back of his neck keeps him exactly as before.

Hands in hair. From the side of Rhys’s face, Jack slides his hand up into Rhys’s hair, damp with the spray of the shower that seems to have settled somewhere above them now.

The weight of another body on his. Jack feels the press of Rhys’s hips against him, and cants his own hips upward to meet him. Another moan escapes from Rhys’s mouth into his. 

Taking things one at a time seems to be working. For now. The experience is just that little bit less overwhelming, to the degree where registering multiple sensations at once becomes an option. Jack feels his fingers tightening the hold on the back of Rhys’s head, while his other hand pushes the increasingly soaked shirt off his shoulder, and he breaks away from Rhys’s mouth to trail kisses and bites along his jaw, his neck, his throat. Rhys cranes his head backwards, hair fully wet and falling over his face now, trickles of water running down his jaw and neck, getting caught between Rhys’s skin and Jack’s lips.

The touch, the sound, the taste, the arousal, it’s still almost too much. Jack feels himself teeter dangerously on the verge of a white-out: if he had a virtual memory usage gauge, it’d be hovering around ninety percent now. But it’s still ninety, not one-hundred; teetering, not falling; _almost_ too much, but still almost. Jack can handle it. He can. 

(Can you?)

(Well, he’d _better_. ‘Cause the alternative is putting a stop to this, and that… that’s simply not happening, no, nuh-uh, not in a million years.)

But even if Jack can handle it, the few extra seconds he needs here and there to adjust to the ever-new sensory input means that he’s constantly playing catch-up. By the time Jack’s peeled Rhys’s sopping wet shirt off the rest of the way, Rhys has already slipped low enough to leave kisses on Jack’s neck and chest, his own chest now out of reach of Jack’s mouth. When Jack tries to sit up again, Rhys’s metal arm goes from supporting the back of Jack’s neck to pinning down his shoulder. And when Jack’s fingers are still working open Rhys’s belt, _Rhys’s_ fingers, with no warning at all, wrap themselves around Jack’s dick.

Jack’s shoulders and neck arch backwards, the back of his head colliding with something behind him (a wall? a plastic panel? has the shower cubicle fully reassembled around them?). The pain of the impact is nothing short of a blessing, a sensation that’s dull enough and familiar enough for Jack’s mind to ground itself in, something to stop him losing himself in the searing white-hot flash that Rhys’s touch (just that one touch; just the freaking one; this isn’t fucking fair) has sent through him.

The reprieve is only momentary. Rhys’s fingers are still wrapped around him. A stroke. Another. A _squeeze_. Jack tries to shut his eyes, but it barely makes a difference: eyes open or shut, his vision is the same blur. Looks like most of his processing power is now being rerouted wholesale to tactile input, and he doesn’t seem to get a say in the matter.

“Stop,” he gasps at Rhys, or thinks he does, anyway; the audio processing isn’t doing so hot, either. “Rhys. Stop.”

Rhys stops. That is to say, he’s not moving his hand for the moment. He’s not moving it _away_ , either. That’s okay. This will do. Just for a moment. Just for a few seconds. 

Jack breathes, slowly; he realizes he hasn’t breathed since the moment his head smacked into the wall behind him. His mind pulls back from the singular, overwhelming, overloading focus on the touch of Rhys’s hand, releases some virtual memory to allow other sensations to start creeping back in around the edges. Rhys’s other hand, a metal grasp on his shoulder. The plastic floor and wall behind him. The water falling from above, warm and whispering. Rhys’s face, mere inches away, tilted to the side just so, brown and gold eyes peering at Jack.

His own hands, Jack realizes, are currently holding on to Rhys’s waistband like it’s a freaking life preserver. He lets go, slides both hands up Rhys’s sides and to his shoulders, and pulls himself into sitting, back pressed against the shower wall. As he does, Rhys actually lets go of him, allows Jack to use his shoulders as leverage to sit up, then eases back, settling down astride Jack’s legs. 

But as soon as Jack stops moving, one of Rhys’s hands settles on his hip, while the other–

“WAIT.” Jack grabs Rhys’s left wrist before he can touch him again.

Rhys shoots him a questioning look.

"Can I actually die in here?" It’s a valid concern, okay? Based on the fact that every sensation from interacting with Rhys in the simulation has sent his code into disarray – from a punch that felt like a freight train, to a fall with many more g’s than justified, to every kiss and touch that overrode his virtual memory allocation – Jack’s pretty sure his AI wasn’t coded for _this_ . How much farther can he take things before something in his code _actually_ glitches? ‘Cause yeah, Jack wants Rhys right now (still not sure how he got here, but here we are), but there are very few fucks in the universe worth literally dying for.

Except, based on the way Rhys’s face splits into a grin at Jack’s question, the kid either believes he _is_ on that short list, or thinks Jack’s being hyperbolic. Jack rolls his eyes.

“Get over yourself, pumpkin. This isn’t dirty talk. This is a technical query.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I think I’ve gotten this close to BSoD-ing a few times now and– Wipe that grin off your face, that wasn’t a fucking euphemism. I’m a goddamn program, cupcake, and I don’t know the rules in here yet. So, from the technical standpoint, can anything we do here actually fuck up my code?”

"From the technical standpoint…" Rhys gets his face mostly under control, but there's still a glint in his eyes that makes Jack want to strangle him, just a bit. "You should be fine."

"You sure?"

"Positive. But maybe mind _your_ head, too." The grin returns to Rhys's face. He's gonna pay for that, Jack promises, silently.

Out loud, however, he only says, "Okay." And lets go of Rhys's wrist.

This time, Jack’s braced for the touch of Rhys’s hand, so it doesn’t take him by surprise. Rhys’s kiss, barely a second later, does. His lips are warm and wet with the shower spray, and his mouth tastes like sweet spearmint, which, Jack realizes, has to be something Rhys had coded into his VR projection on purpose. The thought makes Jack chuckle into Rhys’s mouth. The follow-up realization that he’s capable of actual thought again draws a satisfied breath from him. Okay. This is going better this time.

It really is going better this time, with Jack’s almost-physical shape responding to Rhys’s lips and tongue and hands like an actual _body_ , not a scramble of code scattered across a tangle of processor threads. Warmth and tension and pressure, and an extra jolt of pleasure as Rhys’s fingers grip him tighter, and a momentary sting of pain as Rhys’s teeth nibble on his lip, and a shiver that Rhys’s loud moan sends through him when Jack’s hand presses to the front of his slacks.

 _Yeah_ , thinks Jack as Rhys grinds against his palm, his face buried in Jack’s neck, tiny frayed breaths tickling Jack’s skin. _That’s more like it._

Now that the world makes a bit more sense again – whether it’s ‘cause Jack no longer needs to wonder if one wrong move is gonna literally be the end of him, or maybe ‘cause he actually feels in control of the situation for the first time since getting punched in the face, or maybe ‘cause his code has finally, hah, gotten with the program – Jack’s no longer in a rush to get the rest of Rhys’s clothes off. He anchors one hand on Rhys’s hip, keeps stroking him with the other, all the while savoring the touch of Rhys’s fingers and the soft noises that escape from his lips.

It feels like a small victory when it’s _Rhys_ who starts working his belt open again, and it’s almost worth it when, a few seconds later, he has to let go of Jack to use both hands to finish undoing his slacks and push them down his hips, along with his underwear. The wet fabric is proving uncooperative, catching on Rhys’s skin and resisting his increasingly fumbling efforts to get free – and that’s even before Jack palms him again, making Rhys gasp and grab Jack’s shoulder to steady himself.

“Two can play at this game, huh, Rhysie?” Jack breathes into Rhys’s ear.

“Shut up and give me a hand,” Rhys mutters, still struggling to get combined slacks and underwear past his knees.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” 

“That’s not what I– ah–” Rhys bites down on his lip when Jack’s fingers give him a firmer squeeze. “You know what I mean.”

“Fine.” Jack uses his free hand to pull the coding console out of thin air and thinks a few commands into it. When nothing happens in response, he frowns at the screen. “What the hell? Why isn’t it…”

“For fuck’s sake, Jack.” Rhys lets out an exasperated sigh. “You don’t have the rights to edit _me_.”

“Spoilsport. You do it, then.” Jack pushes the floating screen towards Rhys. 

The kid sits back on his heels and stares at the console, his eyebrows kneading together into a frown framed by strands of sopping wet hair. 

“Whatcha doin’ there, cupcake?” Jack asks when, after a few seconds, _still_ nothing happens. “Trying to glare the code into submission?”

“Shut up,” Rhys mutters. “It’d be easier to concentrate without your hand on my dick.”

“Yeah, it would, wouldn’t it,” Jack notes, conversationally, giving Rhys a couple of slow strokes up and down. “Don’t mind me.”

Rhys shuts his eyes for a moment, then stares the screen down for a few more seconds, then breathes ‘screw this’ and waves the console out of existence. He grabs the nearest wall for support, gets to his feet and opens the door of the shower cubicle. Somehow, he manages to step over Jack’s legs and out into the bathroom proper without tripping himself on the tangle of fabric clinging to his knees and ankles.

Jack watches Rhys kick off his boots (still with the heels) and rid himself of the black slacks, underwear and socks (still with the stripes). Though Rhys makes short work of his clothes, it’s enough time for Jack to appreciate the display, from the full view of the blue tattoos adorning Rhys’s left arm and chest, to the legs that seem to go on forever (it’s kinda ridiculous), and the ass that’s, hm, surprisingly nice for a skinny guy, actually.

“Want me to hop back in there, or?” asks Rhys, stepping around the wet pile of clothes on the floor. Jack grins up at him.

“Nah, I’ll join you.” He flicks his wrist towards the ceiling to shut the water off. “Gimme a hand so I don’t brain myself on the wall again?”

Rhys steps closer to the threshold of the shower cubicle, holds on to the doorframe with one hand and offers the other to Jack. The left one, Jack notes, and hides a smile. _Wrong choice, kiddo_. 

Jack wraps his fingers around Rhys’s wrist and allows himself to be pulled up. As soon as he’s got enough upward momentum to finish the move, he shifts his footing and side-steps behind Rhys, twisting the kid’s arm behind his back.

“Wha–” Rhys shoots a panicked glance over his shoulder, tries and fails to reach Jack with his cybernetic arm. Jack laughs as he leans out of the way.

“Shh... It’s okay, Rhysie,” he purrs into Rhys’s ear, keeping Rhys’s left arm locked as before, and having no trouble avoiding the swats from his right (which are, frankly, half-hearted at best). “If I was gonna hurt you, I would’ve done so already.”

“What are you gonna do?” Rhys whispers. Jack feels him swallow as he presses a kiss against the side of his neck. He grazes Rhys’s ear with his teeth as he answers, not bothering to keep the smile out of his voice.

“Oh, I think you know.”

* * *

Oh shit. Oh shit. _Oh shit._

Rhys’s heart is going a mile a minute, his breaths come short and shallow, and he can feel blood rushing to his skin, as if his whole body has suddenly realized that it was supposed to have been blushing this whole time, and is now pumping extra color into his skin to catch up. Bright pink has flushed Rhys’s face, his neck, his _chest_ , even; he doesn’t need to see the blush to know how all-encompassing it is, but he gets to see it anyway, because Jack, still keeping Rhys’s arm locked behind his back, has turned him around to face the bathroom mirror.

Rhys squeezes his eyes shut and tries to summon back his earlier confidence, that adrenaline skimmed from the top of the sheer mess of emotions that had sprung up in his chest at the sight of Jack, then concentrated by Jack’s own initial shock and bewilderment, and distilled even further by Jack’s response to Rhys and his obvious desire. That feeling hasn’t fled Rhys entirely, he can still taste that thrill, bring it back to his mind, he can almost reach it–

“Looking good, kiddo,” Jack whispers into his ear, and his voice goes straight to Rhys’s knees, and he bites down on his lip to keep a pathetic little sound from escaping, every trace of his almost-reclaimed confidence going, going, _gone_.

Eyes still closed, Rhys lets Jack walk him a few steps forward, feels a hand press between his shoulder blades, doesn’t resist being bent at the waist until the side of his face is resting against a smooth metal surface, probably the bathroom counter. (Of course it’s the counter, Rhys, you moron; this is a digital copy of the standard Atlas accommodation; _you_ have the same bathroom in your apartment; congratulations, by the way, because from now on, the first thing you’ll ever see when you walk into your bathroom will be this damn counter, and the only thing you’ll be ever able to think of will be Jack bending you over it.)

“So tell me,” Jack says, sounding so infuriatingly _casual_ that anyone listening would be forgiven for thinking he was making small talk about the weather, and not standing there naked with his erection pressed up against Rhys’s ass, “was this why you kept deferring our meeting today?” He slides his hand up the back of Rhys’s neck, fingers curling around a handful of Rhys’s wet hair. “Making some room in your schedule, hmm? Just to be sure you wouldn’t get interrupted?”

“No, I– mmh–” Rhys winces at the pinpricks traveling through his scalp; Jack’s grip on his hair is much like the arm lock: only a shadow of pain, but with such promise inside it. “This wasn’t the plan.”

“Could’ve fooled me.” Jack chuckles. He releases Rhys’s arm, but not his hair, leans close enough that Rhys can feel his breath against his back. “So what do you say, cupcake? You wanna call this whole thing off?” Jack’s free hand travels down Rhys’s side and over his hipbone. “Go with your original plan? What was it, anyway?”

“I thought we were gonna… just… talk,” Rhys mutters, drawing breaths through parted lips. (He can feel the calluses on Jack’s palms and finger pads, the kind you’d get from handling guns; but this virtual body hasn’t had a chance to hold a gun, wouldn’t have the time to get calluses; so does this mean that this is what Jack’s hands were really like, back when he was alive; does this mean that all of Jack in this simulation is just that close to the real thing?)

“Well.” Jack’s fingers trace down the outside of Rhys’s thigh, then up the inner side of it. “If you ask me, your plan doesn’t sound anywhere as much fun as–”

“Ngh!” Rhys bites back a whimper, his toes curling against the floor tiles.

“Then again…” Jack tilts Rhys’s head back, scrapes his teeth on the curve of Rhys’s shoulder. “That’s just my opinion. What do _you_ think, Rhys? You wanna keep going?..”

“Yeah…” Rhys breathes. Every movement of Jack’s fingers draws a new moan from him, and it’s a struggle to get any words out around them. “But can you… stop…”

“Wait, what?” Jack’s voice loses most of the cloying, mocking sweetness of the past few moments. Rhys feels the grip on his hair relaxing. “Mixed messages, kiddo. You wanna clarify? You good, or?..”

Rhys lifts his head off the counter just enough to shoot a look over his shoulder. 

“Yes. I’m good. Real good. But for the love of everything, can you _stop_ _talking_ , Jack?”

“Ah!” Jack laughs. “Yeah, no, that’s not happening.”

The next moment, Rhys’s cheek is back on the counter, Jack’s fingers curled into a fist on the back of his head again. He can see his breath misting on the cool metal surface before his eyes squeeze shut again as Jack’s other hand, still between Rhys’s thighs, redoubles its efforts to make up for the momentary pause.

Just because Jack won’t stop talking, thinks Rhys, doesn’t mean that he has to keep listening. He can’t tune Jack’s voice out completely, but he can tune it down, let it fade to a background murmur of compliments and taunts in roughly equal measure, while allowing himself to sink entirely into the swirling mix of physical sensations, so dizzying that he’s not sure the simulation isn’t embellishing them on purpose. Would it feel like this out in the corporeal world, the touch of Jack’s hands and fingers and lips and teeth and tongue, his skin warm and still wet from the shower, the pressure of his body behind Rhys so physical and _real_? 

_No. No, it wouldn’t._ The thought forms in Rhys’s mind, drops into the pit of his stomach small and cold and heavy. It wouldn’t, couldn’t, because Jack doesn’t have a body back in the real world, he’s dead, and none of _this_ is real, and– 

Jack’s hand slips from the back of Rhys’s head to the side of his face, the pad of his thumb skirting Rhys’s jaw and brushing over his mouth. Rhys parts his lips with a soft sigh, and Jack’s thumb slips inside, and the flavors on his tongue are the taste of Jack’s skin that he knows from kissing him earlier, mixed with the smell of his own wet hair that he knows from back in the real world, and this is real enough, real enough, _real enough_.

“Are we doing this, or what?” Jack’s voice in his ear is lower, rougher than before. His thumb pauses to rest on Rhys’s bottom lip.

“Yes,” Rhys whispers, catches Jack’s thumb with his lips for a moment, then teeth, then lips again. “Please.”

“C’mere…” Jack mutters, moving his hand to Rhys’s shoulder, grabbing Rhys’s hip with the other, pulling him upright before Rhys can protest that he can stand up on his own. He leans forward, both hands pressed against the foggy mirror, while Jack gives each of Rhys’s feet a slight kick to move them further apart, grabs Rhys’s hips, fingers digging into Rhys’s skin as he presses behind him, pulls them into alignment just right. 

“Okay…” Jack exhales. “Is this–”

“ _Yes_.” 

Rhys bites down on his lip, his flesh and metal palms flattening against the mirror. Before long, Jack’s hips are flush against his body, and Jack’s hands are pressed over his, and Jack’s face is buried in the crook of his neck. He breathes a low groan onto Rhys’s skin.

“Fuck, Rhysie… So glad you didn’t go with your original plan.”

“Yeah…” Rhys chuckles, breathlessly. “You and me both.”

The mirror in front of them is still fogged up, which is just as well; just the sound and feel of it all are already almost too much for Rhys. The _feel_ of Jack around him, behind him, inside him, each move eliciting a moan from Rhys. The _sound_ of Jack’s breath, an occasional throaty noise falling from his mouth in a perfect counterpoint to Rhys’s own voice. To add the _sight_ of the two of them into the mix… it would be too much, way too much. Even seeing Jack’s hands on top of his sends an extra shiver throughout Rhys whenever he dares to look.

(Jack’s earlier question, back in the shower, about if it’s possible to die in here, doesn’t seem anywhere so funny anymore. Now that his own senses have been driven to fever pitch, if Rhys didn’t know better, didn’t know that anything he does here can’t harm his body back in the real world, he’d be wondering the same thing.)

“Hey, cupcake…” Jack’s lips tickle Rhys’s skin as he speaks. “Open your eyes, will ya.”

Knowing perfectly well that he shouldn’t, Rhys opens his eyes. The mirror in front of them is clear now. It’s high enough on the wall to only show Rhys’s reflection from the chest upwards, but even that is enough to snap his eyes shut again. It takes another command from Jack, softly growled into his ear, to make him look for more than a few seconds.

In the reflection, Rhys's skin is flushed, an even brighter pink than before, spilling from his cheeks down his neck and chest, where his tattoo doesn’t as much allay the color as throw it into starker contrast. His hair is still mussed up from Jack’s fingers, with what few strands had dried since the shower now slick with sweat and sticking to his forehead. His own expression looks so glazed-eyed and breathless he might as well be on every drug there is.

Oh god, he’s a mess, thinks Rhys. Then he lets his eyes drift to the reflection of Jack behind him. 

Jack, his eyes half-lidded, a flash of teeth visible through a crooked half-grin. Jack, his chest heaving with uneven breaths. Jack, his fingers gripping Rhys’s hands harder as his jaw tightens and a low hiss escapes through his teeth.

Jack, who’s almost as much of a mess as Rhys is right now. 

That one singular thought is what finally tips Rhys over the edge of _almost too much_ , skipping right past _actually too much_ and straight into desperate. He pulls his left hand out of Jack’s grip (it takes a few tries and a half-growled, half-whimpered demand before Jack lets go), arches his back against Jack to make more room between his body and the edge of the counter, fails to hold back a gasp at his own, now long overdue touch.

Behind him, Jack breathes out a muffled curse. His free hand lands on Rhys’s hip, grips it tighter than ever before, the extra leverage to make his movements sharper, harder, faster. 

It only takes a few seconds before the new rhythm throws Rhys off-balance. His metal right hand skids on the surface of the mirror, and Rhys is forced to let go of himself and grab the edge of the counter for support. It’s that or faceplant the metal surface, which Rhys wouldn’t even mind that much in this moment, if it weren’t for the terrifying realization that his simulated brain might interpret the impact as actual danger and throw him out of the program, and that’s not allowed to happen, _not fucking now_.

With both hands, Rhys braces himself on the counter. He needs Jack to slow down, just for a second, just long enough for him to find his balance again, because he needs a free hand again, he needs it _now_ , he needs it about ten seconds ago. But before Rhys can shape any of the sounds in his mouth into the request, Jack’s hand slips down his front, Jack’s fingers tighten around him, and the half-formed words are gone, and he doesn’t need them anymore, and the only sounds left in Rhys’s mouth are moans wrapped around Jack’s name.

Rhys’s back arches outwards, pressing him against Jack’s chest. For a single moment, everything is still. Then one of Jack’s hand is on Rhys’s shoulder, the other still on his hip, and Rhys feels himself being yanked backwards, and he lets his head fall forward until it’s almost resting on the counter again, lets soft little cries tumble from his lips at every snap of Jack’s hips against him, until one last move and one shuddering breath brings everything to a standstill again. 

Jack’s face comes to rest between Rhys’s shoulder blades, metal clasps of the mask digging their sharp corners into his flesh. Above the top edge of the mask, Jack's forehead is hot and sweat-slicked, droplets cooling on Rhys's skin.

They stay like this for a few seconds. Then Rhys lets go of the counter, leaving himself at the mercy of Jack’s hands and simulated gravity as his legs fold underneath him. In the end, it’s the gravity that wins over, and both of them end up in a vague heap on the bathroom tiles.

Jack is the first to speak, because of course he is.

“So,” he says as he props himself up on an elbow, “don’t tell me you went to all this trouble of bringing me back just for a booty call?”

Oh god, thinks Rhys. No, of course he didn’t. But he’s never going to live it down now, is he.

“No, I–”

“Actually…” Jack grins and smoothes back his hair. “Maybe do tell me that. This is a whole new side of you, Rhysie, and, uh, tell you what…” Jack’s grin sharpens. He shoots Rhys a wink. “I don’t hate it.”

Now what is _this_ supposed to mean? A hint that this wasn’t just a one-time thing? An invitation for more, for something ongoing, for– No. No. He can’t deal with this right now.

Rhys closes his eyes and cranes his head back against the nearest surface, which happens to be Jack’s shoulder.

“Hey, don’t you freaking go to sleep on me.”

“I’m not going to sleep,” says Rhys, eyes still closed. “Just… give me a moment. I can’t deal with you right now.”

“Oh, _now_ you can’t deal with me. Whatever happened to confident Rhys back there? Got his attitude banged out of him or something?”

Nope, thinks Rhys. Never going to live it down.

“Two minutes,” he says out loud. “Two minutes, and then we code in some dry clothes and talk. I’ve got a proposition for you.”

“Oh, I think you’ve already propositioned me in no uncertain terms, kid. I got the feeling you kinda liked my counter-offer, too.”

Never, ever, _ever_. For as long he lives.

“A business proposition.”

“Well–”

“In _two minutes_ , Jack. I promise I’ll even sweeten the terms for you if you can stay quiet for two freaking minutes, okay?”

“Sweeten the terms more than you’ve already– okay, fine, _fine_. You got it. Two minutes.”

Rhys can’t tell if he can hear a smile in Jack’s voice, or is just imagining it. He doesn’t care. And he knows that there’s no reason for him to stay here, for another two minutes or even two seconds, when the sensible thing to do is to go back to the real world and take a real shower (which, he’s willing to bet, will be necessary). Then log back in, and finally, at long last, go with his original plan of actually talking to Jack about the real reason he brought him back, about business, about Atlas. Real and important things that have nothing to do with the extended moment of madness that had resulted in, if Rhys is honest, the best sex he’s had in ages. (Followed by sitting on the floor with his head, inexplicably, on Jack’s shoulder and Jack, inexplicably, allowing it to be there.)

That’s the sensible and correct course of action. Rhys knows it. And he’ll take it, he'll do the sensible and correct thing, he will, he will, okay. But for now, for just two minutes, he's going to let the sensible and correct course of action be another thing he doesn’t care about.

**Author's Note:**

> The next instalment in this series shall be to celebrate 69 subscribers. Because of course.
> 
> Meanwhile, your More Like this options are:  
> 1\. [False Negatives](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24498265/chapters/59135554) \- Rhys / hologram Jack, smut and feels, actually canon for the Lost and Found timeline  
> 2\. [Lost and Found](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25522786/chapters/61924078), my main Rhack AU and the reason this fic exists; the slowest of burns with tons of character and feels
> 
> Each and every comment appreciated!
> 
> P.S. [I'm on twitter now,](https://twitter.com/CaffeinatedOwl1) if you're into that sorta thing.


End file.
